


Time is a Thief

by Lightning_Skies



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, DCU, Teen Titans, Young Justice
Genre: M/M, Slow Build, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3664635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightning_Skies/pseuds/Lightning_Skies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves. We lose as much to life as we do to death." - Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey</p><p>Xander was forced to flee town when Angelus killed the Scoobies. He ended up stealing to survive and became the Jump City criminal known as Red X. Wacky hijinks ensue as he tries to live his life, wavers between being a hero or a villain, makes friends and enemies on both sides of the caped moral spectrum and takes the DC universe by storm.</p><p>Massive DC-verse merger of various comic arcs, shows, cartoons and movies, but doesn't need more than a passing understanding of DC characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exile

**Author's Note:**

> It took me a few weeks to iron out my timeline, cherry picking and merging what I wanted from the various DC universe titles into one world. The basic world events are from the Young Justice cartoon (ex. the JLA was founded in 2003 and Buffy S2 is shifted forward to 2009) but some alterations were made to add in the Teen Titans cartoon.
> 
> Young Justice S1 is pre-fic, Teen Titans is current to the fic and YJ S2 will be the future.

## Sunnydale City Limits

### January 26, 2009 17:17 PST

  
TS Eliot once wrote, _"This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."_

That one stanza was stuck on repeat in Xander's head as he drove out of Sunnydale, hands clenched white on the steering wheel of his stolen car. A week ago Willow had been trying with futile enthusiasm to get him to memorize those lines from 'The Hollow Men' for their English assignment and now she was dead, Buffy was dead and Giles certainly wasn't going to be able to report the theft of his car, seeing as he was _dead_.

He let his grip relax a little as he flew past the ' **Welcome to Sunnydale** ' sign posted at the town limits as the gibbering fear in his hindbrain eased. He had made it out before full dark, he was safe. Safe but alone. Xander had lost everything in the course of a week. It had only been a few days since Buffy's birthday and Angelus' release, but it seemed like so much longer. The souled vampire had returned to his roots and destroyed them so quickly, it was almost effortless.

Why wouldn't it be? For all his complaints, even Xander had trusted the demon to a certain degree. Not to hold a decent conversation or even with Buffy's heart, but Xander had trusted him to have Buffy’s back and keep her safe in a fight and trusted Angel's guilt to keep him on the side of the actual angels. Turns out Giles' books had it right when they said he had the face of an angel but the heart of a demon. Angelus had used Angel's face to trick and trap them all.

Of the Scoobies, Giles had been killed first, as proof that Angelus wasn't fooling around. As if he could be misunderstood after what he’d done to Ms. Cale- Kalderash… whoever she was. Her relatively small betrayals didn’t deserve the brutal end she got. Angelus was one sick fuck but he really knew how to get into people’s heads to break them open. Under that guise of remorse was a bottomless morass of evil. Xander felt sick just thinking of what he had done to Ms. Calendar. Laying her out like that for Giles to find.

The part of him that remembered being a soldier could see a terrible sort of sense in it. Giles was the oldest, hardest and most likely to be looked to for leadership. It was a basic truth of their group dynamic and one they’d shamelessly shown to Angel again and again. No matter how much Buffy liked to think of herself as independent and alone in her fight, she relied heavily on Giles's wisdom and guidance. Breaking him down emotionally and then snapping his neck just like his lady love was an act of pure demoralization, killing their hope and innocence in one wrenched movement. Buffy's scream of denial and Willow's sobs broke Xander just as thoroughly as the sight of the closest thing he'd ever had to a father figure crumpling lifelessly to the ground.

When Angelus smugly thanked Buffy for releasing him and taunted her for succumbing to foolish teenage hormones in a way that ended up being the direct cause of her Watcher's death the Slayer had snapped and attacked in a blind fury. She was completely out of control and outmatched. He wore her down slow and easy, battering her around the library and leaving their home ground in shambles in his wake. It was a public space without any protection from vampires, but it had been theirs. Their inner sanctum, where they had stood victorious over the Master and other threats. They’d let themselves feel safe and unassailable here, and even that certainty was being torn from them.

Spike and Drusilla were there, holding Xander and Willow hostage as Angelus played his games with their Slayer. When Buffy started tiring, Angelus threatened their lives to keep her going. She had to win or her best friends would die. It had worked, giving her a second and third wind, but even desperation can only get someone so far when they are completely outmatched. Xander saw the defeat in her eyes as her movements slowed and grew sloppy. Eventually, she stumbled and fell, sliding to her knees, unable to get up.

Time slowed for Xander as he watched the heavy fall of Buffy’s tears. Pain engulfed him as fangs slid into his neck. His vision greyed out and narrowed down to the wet glistening of abject desolation on her face. His physical pain was secondary to the horror of seeing that shattered look on Buffy's face and knowing that Willow was suffering alongside him. Xander could feel his blood flooding out of him and the cold creeping in as his pulse fluttered in distress. The world faded away as he felt death reaching out in anticipation of taking him away from it all.

He woke up in the hospital, to the gushing enthusiasm of the nurses and doctors who kept using words like 'miraculous recovery' and 'lucky to be alive'. Xander didn't feel lucky, especially after they asked him to identify the DOA bodies he had been found with.  Giles' cold stare was cloudy, Willow's expressive face was slack and waxy and according to the doctors Buffy's brutalized body had suffered another several hours of torture before she also succumbed to blood loss. They were all laid out side by side in matching silver morgue drawers and every part of Xander ached to curl up on his own slab and join them, but he'd been left behind. The ER nurses that had so cruelly pulled him back from the brink told him that the police were coming to take his statement, but he had nothing to say to them. The Sunnydale PD were worse than useless. They'd probably try to pin the whole thing on him.

So, he checked out against medical advice, and without the actual checking out part. It was more of an unobserved escape as Xander made his slow shambling exodus into the harsh sunshine. Fear and adrenaline battered his exhausted, medicated, anemic system and the only thing that kept him moving was the knowledge that he only had a few hours before the sun set. Angelus would love a chance to correct the oversight of his continuing life. He couldn't quite bring himself to be thankful that Dru had failed to kill him. His body and heart hurt too much for him to consider it fortunate that he was still alive to feel.

He went to Giles' apartment, knowing the older man no longer had any need for his belongings and wouldn't begrudge him his survival. He ransacked the place, taking the weapons and books and anything valuable he could find. He loaded Giles' car down with his scavenged goods, settling Giles' guitar in the passenger seat. He had never even heard the man play. Xander wondered if he could sing as well, and what he might have sounded like. A painful lump caught in his throat and his eyes stung at the realization that he would never know. Never get to pester and tease the Englishman into playing for him.

Xander stopped briefly at the girl's houses as well, walking right in the front doors with a heavy stone of guilt in his gut over the fact that their homes were so conveniently empty because their parents had been called to the hospital to claim their bodies. He cleared out Buffy's weapons, doing his friend one last favor by removing any proof that she was anything but a normal teenage girl. Joyce would never know that she had raised not a delinquent but a hero, and she didn't need to stumble upon the suspicious stash as she tried to set her daughter's worldly affairs to order. The only personal item he took was the picture of the three of them, Willow, Xander and Buffy huddled together in a tangle of arms and grinning into the camera, placed in the position of honor on her bedside table.

Being in Willow's room nearly broke him. Her bedroom had been his refuge from home since second grade and it already felt so empty and cold without her there. He fed her fish one last time and gathered together everything that had sentimental value in a pillowcase that still smelled like her shampoo. He also stripped her room of computers and electronics. Computers had always been her passion and she had the top of the line in everything. He hated to steal from her, but he would need the money they would bring in and her parent’s wouldn’t even notice the loss.

He was furious with himself for the bolt of complete fear that filled him as he realized that the sun streaming into Willow's room had faded into late afternoon. He was far too old to be afraid of the dark, but he'd recently had a refresher in why humans feared the monsters of the night. He quickly loaded up Giles' ugly old Citroen and fled town. He didn't have a plan beyond giving into his flight response and driving as long as the gas tank held and then selling the car, he couldn't afford to keep it fueled. He was on his own now.

That's how the Scoobies ended, not with the burst of fireworks or flare of rockets, but with a sudden betrayal and complete annihilation of everything Xander cared about.

## Jump City Limits

### January 26, 2009 21:20 PST

The half-full gas tank got Xander a few hours up the coast to Jump City, which was better mileage than he'd thought he'd get in Giles' rust bucket. The city was perfect for his needs, large enough to be completely anonymous and easy to get lost in, but not as close to Sunnydale as LA. Angelus would never find him here, if he even bothered trying. After having thought all night, Xander decided it was pretty suspicious that a group of vampires known for slaughtering their way across England could 'accidentally' leave someone alive. Death was pretty much their profession, the only way they had left him alive was if they didn't care.

Giles was an active Watcher, with all the knowledge, connections and training inherent in the position. Buffy was the The Slayer, boogey-man to vampires everywhere, her death was a mark of achievement for the Scourge. Willow was a budding witch with an intellect that would take her important places in the future. They were all threats. Xander was just there. A lower-middle class, average intelligence townie who would never have amounted to anything in his whole life if he hadn't met Buffy. He was a deadbeat hanger-on and second hand hero. He was a sidekick. Villains never bothered to kill the sidekick after they beat their nemesis, because what worth did a plus one have without the person holding the invite. It was Angelus' ultimate fuck-you to the teen, denying him even the right to stand and die with his friends.

Angelus probably expected Xander to crawl home like a wounded animal and wait to be hunted down at his whim. It wasn't going to happen. Xander may not have the training and abilities of the rest of the Scoobies but he was a survivor. He had lived all his life under the thumb of a father who liked to belittle and beat him down emotionally. Angelus couldn't make him feel worse about himself than he'd been used to feeling all his life. He just had to remember back to the days before yellow crayons and red hair and the safety found in a warm hug, back when he was alone and had no one's support. He was a true child of the Hellmouth. He wasn't paralyzed with fear, he was galvanized by it, old instincts allowing him to thrive under the pressure of it. The more afraid he felt, the more focused he became.

Finding himself on a run for his life, alone in the world, with nothing to his name but a stack of supernatural books and an arsenal of medieval weaponry in the trunk made him very afraid. He had never thought more clearly in his life and a calm confidence descended over him, straightening his back with cold steel. It felt as if he was back on that Halloween night a year ago, level-headed assurance in his strategic thinking and military training.

The first thing he did after hitting city limits was immediately set about unloading his ill gotten goods at a halfway decent looking pawn shop. He was surprised how much Giles' turntable and records had sold for. He remembered Oz being impressed with the collection, but didn't have any first hand idea how much it was all worth. Had he made a wild guess, it wouldn't have been even half of what he got for it. The fancy wood and brass mantle clock he had grabbed turned out to be a good choice as well, who knew how expensive custom timepieces could be. He mourned his inability to lift Giles' grandfather clock for a moment, but shook it off and dived right back into haggling with the clerk. Of all his current regrets, that was the most insignificant.

The clerk didn't seem to know anything about computers and wouldn't believe Xander that they were high end so he didn't bother selling them. He couldn't bear to part with Giles' guitar for the measly hundred he was offered. He didn't know why he was so fixated on the guitar, he hadn't even known Giles played. He should have associated the giant stack of vanillin scented books with the Watcher, but those were a sign of his profession, not him as a person. The guitar humanized the librarian and made Xander realize that he was more than a mentor or teacher, he had been a full person in his own right and Xander would never get to know him. Tears burned at his eyes, but he pulled the cold calm around his emotions. He couldn't break down, not yet.

His next stop was to find a storage facility and put up the money to rent a unit for a year while he had the funds on hand. It would give him a guaranteed crash space and he could work his way up from there. He picked an internal unit towards the back of the facility near an outside door and unloaded the weapons and books. There was no way he was going to part with the only things that may help him survive the city's nightlife. He strapped on a few of the knives and cased the neighborhood, finding the nearest soup kitchen, shelter and bus stops.

His next step was selling the car. He didn't shop for a good offer, knowing that he couldn't sell it at all if it actually ran out of gas and stalled on the side of the road. Xander found the dirtiest, shabbiest but still busy mechanic shop he could and asked around for anyone looking to buy cheap and quick. He did his best to look casual and confident, as if he lifted and sold cars for chopping all the time. He had only approached a few customers when a big burly mechanic came out and offered to take it off his hands for 1k in cash if he promised to never come back. He readily agreed and fled with his fistful of cash before the gruff man could change his mind.

His day ended huddled in the storage unit under a musty wool blanket from Giles's trunk, head pillowed on a thick leather bound tome wrapped in Willow's pillowcase with Buffy's photo placed on the floor in front of him. He stared at the picture with the light of an emergency flashlight from the glovebox. The dim light, cold concrete and steel walls were the only witnesses as he finally broke down, his tears soaking through the thin pillowcase into the fragile leather cover of the book. Giles would have been furious.

## Jump City Police Department

### July 6, 2009 06:12 PST, Six Months Later

Time flies when you’re having fun, it crawls excruciatingly when you are scraping the tattered remains of a life together day after day. Either way, it will pass.

Xander felt every moment of the days that shuffled past, eroding away the person he used to be, until he felt completely different from who he was before. He felt unrecognizable. His whole life could be divided into the Before and the After. Before, he was cheerful, friendly and funny, always cracking jokes and playing the fun loving idiot. After, he was cold and focused, brutally pragmatic, standoffish and downright unfriendly. Before, he was a hero, or at least hero adjacent. After, he was a thief and a criminal and felt no remorse over it.

It started with his need to survive. He was an unfortunate combination of broke and bored when he realized that the storage facility wasn't monitored by cameras and only had one guard posted at the front gate. He found himself in a thousand unit playground. With nothing to do with himself between meager meals at the shelter and soup kitchen, he taught himself to pick locks for long hours every day. He started with paperclips and the older padlocks, the ones most simple in construction. Once he mastered those he moved to more modern designs, the ones designed to be 'theft proof' and tracked down some actual tools for his new found trade. Once he had conquered the entire gamut of key locks he turned to the combination locks, learning to feel out the tumblers with nothing but his fingertips and hearing.

His nights were spent curled up in a nest of stolen bedding and pillows, reading Giles' books on magic and demonology by flashlight. His days involved pawning the things he'd looted from the storage units. A few months into this new business venture he had to change pawn shops abruptly when he caught sight of a cop questioning his usual pawn broker with several familiar looking items spread out over the counter. After that he made sure to spread his misappropriated goods evenly across the city, having long since mastered the bus routes by then.

His break-ins could only go unnoticed for so long and eventually the guard started patrolling, and cameras were put in. His studies in alternative criminology expanded to include evasion, stealth and how to disable cameras. He learned to scale the fence surrounding the facility and how to outrun a pursuer. He even practiced using Willow's laptop to hack into and loop the cameras from the control center in the office when the guard was doing his rounds. The storage facility remained his kingdom for a long time before the thefts became too much and people stopped entrusting valuable things to the company. He had to take his skills elsewhere for money.

He was confident that pick-pocketing would be just as easily picked up as lock-picking and was proved immediately and disastrously wrong. His first week out, he was caught red handed with his hand in a woman's purse at a crosswalk and got himself dragged to the nearest police station by a businessman who, from the size of him, did nothing but work out in his free time. He had been a recluse for months at this point and decided that he hated other people. Humanity as a whole was almost more troublesome than their possessions were worth, he did much better when he was left alone.

No matter what the cops threatened him with he refused to give up his name. They took his prints and a DNA sample, but his parents weren't the types to file a kidnapping kit and apparently never reported him missing, so he wasn't on file for anything. The police had never been allies of his, ignoring everything that went on after dark or behind closed doors. Now that he had thrown his lot in on the side of the undesirables they finally chose to be diligent in their work. It figured.

The cops didn’t know what to do with Xander and seemed hesitant to charge him while they had no idea who they had arrested. It didn’t hurt that he was obviously underage either. They called in Social Services and threatened to put him in a home, not that any home could keep him if he wanted to disappear. He refused to even speak to the social worker. They tried a good cop/bad cop routine with him, but considering the fact that he mistrusted and was quickly coming to downright loathe cops, even their most charming detectives couldn’t get much verbal traction.

He knew it was irrational, since he was in an entirely new jurisdiction, but he was surprised with how deep his hatred for the Police and Social Services ran once he was face to face with them. Where were they when his Dad came home drunk every night and took it out on him? Where were they when good kids like Jessie just disappeared, or when Luke ate half of the Bronze for the Harvest, or when the swim team disappeared, or when a Tarakan assassin dressed as a cop shot up a public hallway? Where were they when Giles and Willow and Buffy were killed on the grounds of a public school? Cops had never done anything for him and he would give them nothing in return, no matter how much they harassed him.

He didn’t bother asking for a lawyer, because they’d need his name and then what was the point of keeping silent? Xander didn’t know anything about the law but he rotted in a holding cell for what had to be an illegal amount of time. Being basically a good kid he'd never studied up on arrest procedure. He thought that it should have been limited to 24 hours unless you were charged with something, and without his name they hadn’t been able to do that. Not that anyone cared where he was or would look for him. They could forget about him locked down here and no one would notice until he began to stink.

There was nothing to do in the cell, so he amused himself with napping. It screwed up his sense of time, but also helped the hours pass. A guaranteed three squares and a thin mattress without any effort expended was luxury living as far as he was concerned. Finally, on what he estimated was the fourth morning, he woke up to a severe looking woman with white hair standing outside his cell staring at him. He hadn’t heard her come in and had no idea how long she had been watching him. He stared right back, silently challenging her. He had nothing better to do and since they didn’t seem eager to release him, he had lots of time to kill. A staring contest was childish but he managed to take enough amusement from it to make it worth his time.

Their gazes stayed locked for minute after minute as they assessed each other. Neither of them moved. She didn’t so much as shift on her austere heels and despite the vulnerability of being laid out on a low bench in a cage, Xander didn’t bother to sit up. She felt dangerous, like a viper posed to strike, but he didn’t know what she wanted and couldn’t even begin to guess how best to respond and avoid being bitten. He decided to just wing it without a concern for repercussions, like everything else he did these days. He had hit rock bottom and had the sort of fearlessness that came from knowing you had nowhere else to fall. He was done being apologetic for who he was and she could take him as he was or she could walk her stern looking self right out of his face.

“They tell me that you refuse to identify yourself.” When she finally spoke, he couldn’t help but startle slightly, and he could see the triumph in her eyes at his loss of composure. To regain some footing in the conversation he sat up a bit and slouched back against the wall with deliberate lack of concern. This was the type of woman accustomed to being respected and obeyed. He would rather brave her wrath than play into her sense of entitlement. He pandered to no one, especially someone associated with cops.

“Do they really?” Answering a question with a question was the perfect way to annoy a person. Especially since she hadn’t asked a question, simply stated a fact and expected it to be elaborated upon.

“You are in a dangerous situation. No one cares that you are missing, no one is interested in advocating for you and you are irritating the people who are in a position do whatever they wish to you if you are uncooperative.”

“Pretty sure the law says they can’t touch me.”

“Ah, yes. The law.” Her voice and posture didn’t change a whit but her eyes sharpened and Xander knew this was the reason she was here. “… and do you put your faith in the law to keep you safe- to prevent harm from coming to you?”

Xander scoffed, “Yeah, right. I trust the law to be used against me. I trust it to hurt and hinder me. The law is nothing but a set of arbitrary rules set down by and enforced by whoever holds the most power at the moment. The law has no power in-and-of-itself, no one HAS to follow the law, they just have to be subtle about their disregard or prepared to defend themselves from the consequences if they get caught.”

Her stony expression didn’t change, but she seemed pleased by his words and her response changed his life. “I would like to make you an offer.”

That was how Xander first met Adeline Kane, Headmistress of the HIVE Academy for Extraordinary Young People. The cops thought that she was a part of some outreach pity program for troubled youths and gave her a heads up whenever a difficult case passed over their desks. The word 'hive' invoked in them pleasant mental images of an ordered military school that beat the individuality out of a delinquent, breaking them down into obedient citizens. The reality was quite different. HIVE stood for the Higher Institute of Villainous Education. Kane ran a villain factory.

The cops were literally feeding baby criminals into a recidivism machine that polished their skills into true felons. The reason these guys never saw the kids back on the street wasn’t because they’d been straightened out, it was because they’d become a higher class of criminal, one that didn’t get caught by beat cops. Xander loved the vicious irony of using the system against itself.

He quickly found out through a short debrief in her anonymously understated car that Headmistress Adeline Kane shopped around the various precincts for the kids who were beyond help. The typical disaffected youth and rebellious teens she left in their cells to wait for Mummy and Daddy to post bail. She only took on the truly hopeless cases, those who had walked on the dark side and liked it. Xander wasn’t sure if he was flattered or ashamed to have been handpicked and judged an appropriate candidate for the school.

What followed were the hardest years of his life. The Headmistress may have come for him personally, but that didn’t mean she felt anything for him. Villains could be trusted to be harsh like that. She dumped him into the basic training program and headed off to her office without looking back. Xander was struck with a jarring reality check when he realized that his place was at the bottom of the pecking order. The supes, or kids with powers, were the darlings of HIVE, individually trained and given the best of everything no matter how soft they were. The norms were there to act as backup and make the supes look good. A willingness to kill and destroy could be taught, super powers could not. Despite his street experience and skill navigating the cold, hard world, Xander had no powers and wasn’t expected to become anything better than a HIVE foot soldier. He could expect his future to involve obeying orders from someone with powers and eventually being sacrificed for the cause. They wanted him to aspire to minion-ship and the short, sad life of a red-shirted stormtrooper.  He wasn’t having it. He refused to bow and scrape and serve another’s cause.

HIVE was a secret kingdom of Villains and Henchmen, the haves and the have-nots, and Xander was used to being a have-not. It had never stopped him before and it wasn’t going to stop him now. Having no one expect anything from him was freeing, he had no one to disappoint and felt no shame when he failed. He just got back up and made sure to fail better the next time. He was considered too pathetic to even mock for his failures. The whole school looked down on him or overlooked him entirely and wasn’t that a familiar feeling. He was the Zeppo again, but this time he refused to own the label. Xander had changed and as the cold calm of determination came over him he decided to prove it. He would show HIVE that even starting at the bottom wouldn’t hinder him; he would use the school the way they wanted to use him. He would wring every bit of combat, espionage and weaponry training out of them. He was a thief, not a villain, his only priority was himself and he wouldn’t let them change that.

To that effect he looked over his assigned schedule, labeled appropriately with a simple X, as he had still refused to provide his name. Unlike the cops, Headmistress Kane had encouraged it, secret identities and false names were a basic element of villainy and he was meant to be a faceless thug anyways. He immediately crossed out all of the overtly ‘evil’ classes, ‘ _Hostage Taking_ ’, ‘ _Death Threats_ ’ and ‘ _Theory of Mayhem_ ’, and decided to double up on ‘ _Stealth and Evasion_ ’, ‘ _Hacking and Information Gathering_ ’ and ‘ _Introduction to Combat_ ’. He would have to check out ‘ _Villainous Ethics: Honor Among Thieves_ ’, ‘ _Heroes: Knowing the Enemy_ ’ and ‘ _The Law and You_ ’ before making final judgment on their usefulness. Xander would bet good money he didn’t have that no one cared enough to notice what classes he attended. He would see how long he could get away with his modified schedule, and if someone took exception to a lowly henchman hand tailoring his own education, he would deal with it when it happened.

Xander trained tirelessly, night and day to be the best in his chosen courses. He had a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. It was easier than he thought to bypass the supes in his combat and stealth classes. They were used to relying on their powers not their bodies and typically those powers were pretty noticeable and blew any attempts at stealth right out of the water. As a result, none of the supes tried very hard in the physical courses, preferring their individualized ability training and showing off on the flashy obstacle courses.

Xander was shocked to find himself the favored student of the Tactical Education department.  He didn’t cheat with magic, super-genetics or cybernetic strength and reflexes.  He didn’t skive off and fool around like the magic users and energy projectionists. He had a brain, able body and determination to improve himself, unlike the typical non-enhanced but still musclebound thugs. In short, he was the perfect student and the faculty descended on him with all the passion of highly paid, incredibly bored and under-appreciated master martial artists, boxers, gymnasts and athletes. He had the full and focused attention of half a dozen frustrated and expert fighters and he certainly felt their enthusiasm down to his bones every night as he collapsed into his bed. It was worth it though, as his physical ability and iron control over his body shot past everyone’s expectations.

He would never be as fast as the Flash or as strong as Mammoth, or as good at electronic engineering and hacking as Gizmo, but he could run circles around Mammoth, out hacked everyone but the techno-supes and could crush Gizmo with one hand tied behind his back. He was never going to be a stand out in any field, but he believed that being the absolute best in only one thing was outweighed every time by a well rounded plethora of skills. Rock may beat scissors may beat paper, but if you could strategize properly and switch between them all based on your opponent, you were set. Life was good and Xander could see himself improving more and more as every month passed, until the day came that he realized that he could probably have taken Buffy in a fight.

She, like many other supes, had suffered from special people syndrome, an ingrained arrogance that, trained or not, powers were better than skills. With the distant perspective of the years since he’d lost her Xander was able to see the flaws in the golden Slayer. She hadn’t been perfect, and neither had Giles or Willow. He loved them, always would, but he could finally take them down off of their pedestals and realize that they had been people with flaws and foibles. It didn’t hurt so much to remember them now, and he wondered what they would think of the new him. Buffy and Willow probably wouldn’t be comfortable with the changes, Buffy's black and white view of the world would classify him as evil and Willow would want to save him from himself. Giles might understand, even if he didn’t agree with his choices.

Xander was living a life that he’d ever expected or wanted, but he could call himself content. He didn’t have any friends and the entire school ignored or underestimated him, but he was fine with that and even encouraged his untouchable invisible reputation. In a school full of political maneuvering and literal backstabbing it was good to be overlooked and underestimated. No one bothered removing a threat that they didn’t realize was there. True to his initial assessment, no one ever noticed or cared what classes he was taking. He thought his combat Masters probably noticed, he spent double the hours in the gym that everyone else did. They were probably just so pleased to have extra time to beat on him that they had never said anything to him about it or bothered reporting him for it. The prevailing attitude seemed to be, what others did or didn’t notice was a sad commentary on their own poor observation skills. Lying and subterfuge were a viable and appropriately villainous way of life and they thought it was hilarious that the school was largely unaware of his true worth.

Of course, as Xander was coming to expect from his life, his little bubble of contentment eventually burst in a painful, messy way. On that day, Headmistress Kane hired out her top students, Jinx, Mammoth and Gizmo on a mission against Jump City’s very own super hero team, the Teen Titans. It was a humiliating experience for everyone involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on Locations -  
> Sunnydale = Santa Barbara, CA  
> Jump City = Monterey, CA  
> Happy Harbor = Block Island, RI  
> Gotham = Falls, PA  
> Bludhaven = Gloucester City, NJ


	2. Exam

## HIVE Adademy for Extraordinary Young People

### April 3, 2012 23:34 PST, Three Years Later

 Mammoth, Gizmo and Jinx were supes. There was a constant whispered debate behind Gizmo's back over if he actually had any powers, but Xander thought that any 10 year old kid that was capable of building a remote controlled cold fusion reactor from a vacuum cleaner was clearly either super powered or a reality breaking deus ex machina. Heavy on the machina. No one ever bothered asking him his opinion though, so he kept his thoughts to himself.

 The trio was the pride and joy of the Academy, the strongest, most intelligent and most powerful students respectively. They were afforded a bit of celebrity status among the HIVE students and were watched so closely that the whole school immediately knew when their darlings had been hired out. It was apparently very exciting, the whole student body buzzed around like someone had kicked an actual bee hive.

 Xander figured their vaunted reputation was why their inaugural mission was being recorded by the Headmistress’ gimmicky robotic surveillance bees. He had long since hacked one of the robo-bugs to be his little spy and rerouted it's uplink to a full-sized prototype wall monitor he had installed in his room after 'acquiring' it from the tech department. Anything she saw, he had access to.

In his defense, he could now turn his whole wall into a touch screen, the tech was much too cool to leave it to get dusty on a shelf and the cat sized bug was important spyware. Anything the Headmistress had her eye on was worth knowing because she had her fingers in every pie and the little fellow was kinda cute. He watched it dance in circles over the screen wall as it wirelessly fed it's surveillance data through the sensors in its legs. Even an antisocial jerk like Xander needed a pet to talk at or he'd go nuts.

 Not to mention that it was ridiculously easy to steal things in a villain school, so why the hell not. Every single student was a suspect for any wrong doing and secrets were so viciously protected that attempting room searches would be a life threatening endeavor for the faculty. It wasn't like he ever had any visitors that might rat him out either. Xander settled in on his plush queen sized bed, ill-begotten of course, and enjoyed the show.

 The trio made a good showing of themselves initially, actually managing to embarrass the Titans into fleeing back home to regroup and then ousting the heroes from their own tower. Something that no one else had managed in the months since the tower went up. Xander thought it was idiotic of the hero team to make so obvious a target of themselves, his ‘ _Lair Design 101_ ’ class stressed the importance of secrecy and discretion. He waved away the bitter thought that a public library was a much more vulnerable HQ. The Scoobies had paid dearly for their strategic errors and he was living proof that whatever didn't kill you made you stronger. His hand pressed unconsciously against the deep scar tissue on the side of his throat, a self-soothing habit he'd picked up in the last few years.

 This fight was the first official confrontation between HIVE and the Titans, despite both groups having co-habitated the same city for several months since the hero squad planted their flag on the island in the bay. Heroes had a sixth sense for trouble and even without knowing about the school, they had been drawn in by the sky high crime rate in the area. There was no subtle way to house a whole campus of troublemakers without collateral damage and mayhem to the surrounding neighborhood. Teenage villains weren’t subtle, they were drama queens who thrived on pageantry and they regularly wrecked their own backyard.

 Xander didn’t know how long the HIVE school had existed, but he was surprised that it had taken the heroes this long to mobilize. He had personally been in Jump City for three years and at HIVE for two of those years before the heroes had even stepped foot in the city. At first, the Tiny Tots squad hadn’t been taken seriously, but they quickly racked up a reputation among norm criminals and then, as their teamwork got better, they started facing off with supes. In the early days any HIVE student that was captured by the new team was humiliated and ridiculed by the rest of the school for their failure, but then it became a regular occurrence and expected hazard of pulling a job in the city. Still, no one thought very highly of the Teen Titans until they started taking down big game like Plasmus. He was an actual proper villain, not a crook of opportunity or a half trained student. The school's smarter strategists had sat up and taken notice of the team after that, but some still thought of them as children in capes.

 It was their own arrogance that turned around and bit Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth on the collective behinds. They TOOK OVER the tower. They didn’t destroy it or loot it or even change the security programs. They just settled in as if the defeated heroes would hang up their capes forever in shame and never darken the doorstep of their own home base again. This idiocy confirmed in Xander’s minds that either all supes were arrogant morons or thieves were just inherently that much smarter than the colorful but dim circus of heroes and villains. Gizmo had obviously hacked the trio’s grades in ‘ _Mastermindery_ ’ since no one would have been allowed to pass the class if they displayed this level of buffoonery on their assignments.

 He caught the scent of remedial lessons in the air with a sense of glee. Anything that humiliated a supe was a good thing in his book. It wasn’t like he had any school spirit or team loyalty that would get him all huffy over HIVE’s reputation, so he could just sit back and enjoy the show as the situation hit the fan and splattered everywhere. He may not have any friends, but he had schadenfruede and that was almost as good. He wasn't good company these days anyway, his humor was a dark and viciously twisted wreck of what it once was. Not exactly the kind of jokes that you'd amuse a crowd with, even a villain crowd. He'd come a long way from his role as class clown.

 Buzz danced across the screen as tinny voices emitted from his speakers.

_"Sorry to interrupt the victory celebration, but like I said… 'This isn't over.'"_

  _"It's just getting started."_

_"Attack Pattern: Alpha!"_

 It was like watching a train wreck. He wished he had some popcorn. Xander actually felt a faint tickle of second hand embarrassment over the trouncing the Titans were delivering. The HIVE trio's lack of diligence in their combat training was shining through loud and clear. They just kept repeating the same attacks they'd tried the first time. Attack Pattern: Alpha was pretty and all, but it was a basic frontal attack. It was powerful when it hit, but it was slow, obvious and easy to dodge. Not to mention that they weren't anime characters that needed to shout their attack names. If they needed to coordinate an attack they should have used subtle hand gestures or cues. Starfire didn't fly around screaming 'Starbolt!' and Beast Boy wasn't always shouting 'Shape of an elephant!' or ‘Kangaroo power, activate!’

 They'd beaten the Titans through a lucky combination of surprise and diversionary tactics, not their own skills. Gizmo was well suited to disabling Cyborg and distracting Starfire, and Jinx's unusual magic was more than enough to take down an unprepared Robin to divert Raven and Beast Boy, but then they'd gotten sloppy. They allowed the heroes to recover, regroup, analyze their abilities and take their revenge.

_"Hey, Robo-wimp. Feel like getting hacked?"_

_"Nope. How about you? ROBIN, NOW!"_

_"AAAGH! CUT IT OUT, YOU'RE GONNA CRASH MY WHOLE SYSTEM! UGH! GET IT OFF ME! GETITOFFME!"_

 Robin easily overpowered Gizmo's tech-pack system with a simple surge generator. Electricity vs delicate electronics was such an obvious weakness Xander was legitimately surprised that Gizmo hadn't thought of putting a grounded casing on it or fixing the flaw some other way. Turns out that genius level intelligence didn't guarantee proper application or follow through of basic common sense. He wondered if the pipsqueak had even waterproofed his tech-pak. He snickered at the thought of a rainy mission turning the brat into a Gizmo-B-Q.

_"Beast Boy, GO!"_

  _"Your luck just ran out."_

 Jinx's situational awareness was awful, and she panicked too easily. Allowing herself to be herded with starbolts and taken down by an 18-inch monkey. You'd think for a girl with such destructive power at her fingertips, she'd be more careful not to use it on herself or her immediate surroundings. She was uncharacteristically lucky that the falling scaffolding didn't crush her. At least she hadn't shot herself in the face with a hexbolt while trying to pry Beast Boy off, it was the only thing she’d done even halfway right, although firing randomly wasn't much better.

  _"RRRROOOOWWWWR!"_

_"AAAAAAAAAHH!"_

 Mammoth was just muscle. Scary muscle, but just muscle; all he had going for him was his strength and durability. Once Gizmo and Jinx were down, he didn't stand a chance. Seeing him running scared from a T-Rex was delightful though. Guys like him were bullies through and through. He totally deserved having the fear put into him by something bigger and meaner.

_"Crammit, I'm calling Slade."_

  _"Who is Slade?"_

  _"Wouldn't you like to know, barf-brain."_

 What really caught Xander's attention was the hero, Robin. He didn't display any super powers but he was still team leader. The others didn't look down on him or belittle him; they followed his orders easily and without argument. Once he mobilized his team, he took complete control of the flow of the fight, dominating HIVE’s finest from start to finish. Robin fought confidently and incorporated several recognizable schools of martial arts into his highly mobile, acrobatic combat style.

 Xander itched to test himself against the kid. It was obvious from their body types that he had height, weight and strength against the hero, but- he craned his head to get a better angle as the kid flipped upside down while throwing a birdarang- he was definitely not that flexible and wasn’t sure he could out maneuver him. For the first time since he’d left Sunnydale, Xander was able to look beyond himself and his self pitying depression to become interested in another person. He had to know more about the Titan.

 A manic grin spread over Xander's face as he felt the stirrings of actual enthusiasm kindling in the ashes of his heart. He was excited to see what he could dig up about the kid. If the hero turned out to be in the least bit interesting the thief might have a full blown obsession on his hands. Obsessions were good, or at least better than the complete apathy that had fogged over the last few years. At least an obsession would be something to do. He needed a hobby. Stealing HIVE blind was getting boring.

 “Alright, Buzz. Let’s see that second fight again in slow-mo and see if you can calculate any stats on their abilities.” The robo-bug made a whirring noise, its multi-faceted eyes glowing bright yellow as it processed his command. He flexed his fingers and settled them on the home row of his wireless keyboard. The room went silent except for the faint buzzing and rapid tapping of keys as the pair pulled up window after window, taking clips and screenshots of the fight and analyzing every bit of information they could gather and hack about Robin.

 Xander found out all sorts of fascinating tidbits. Robin, the Boy Wonder, protégé of Gotham’s own vigilante, Batman. The Dark Knight, who had been nothing but an urban legend for years until the JLA went public six years ago. From that point forward he was acknowledged occasionally in the company of a young sidekick. The kid ran with the fucking Batman… and the first report of the Bird Wonder coincided with the JLA reveal. No wonder he was so good. The Bat had no powers and habitually kept the company of the most powerful and successful heroes in the world. Judging from his current age, Robin had been younger than Gizmo when he first donned his kevlar tights. Xander started the long, slow process of setting up an information network in the dark city, he would have to earn some trust before anyone willingly spilled their Bat-speriences. Criminals were an untrustworthy, superstitious and distrusting lot, naturally he fit right in.

 Xander jerked awake hours later from where he had fallen asleep mid-hack, slumped uncomfortably in the crack between his bed and the wall, clutching the keyboard to his chest like a teddy bear. Buzz idled quietly, running the calculations he had requested while it waited for more commands. What had woken him up?

 It was with a dawning sense of horror that Xander heard the beep of an override code on his door and he flopped over to look at the door upside down just as it swooshed open, revealing Headmistress Kane. She looked him over with a stern glance, she hadn’t changed at all in the years since they’d last been face to face. Her ice queen routine didn't even crack when the giant hacked robotic bumblebee he had stolen pretty much directly from her buzzed loudly.  Buzz had been startled out of sleep mode at her entrance and was crawling all over his screen wall in agitation as it fought conflicting programming on who it's master was. The same screen wall he'd made out of stolen school tech, the very same screen wall that was currently plastered with screenshots from the video feed he shouldn’t have had access to and hacked information on the Boy Wonder. Oops.

 Never the one to admit when he was beaten, no matter how obvious his crimes, Xander rolled over on his bed to look at her right side up, ignored the fact that he had the imprint of a keyboard across his face and drawled, "Can I help you?"

 Rule three of being a thief, even when you're caught red handed, stay silent and don't incriminate yourself until they accuse you of something and then deny, deny, deny. _Why no, officer, I have NO IDEA why you decided to pull me over today._

 Her eyes narrowed at him and she bit out, “I want you in my office in five minutes. Try to look presentable.”

## HIVE - Headmistress’ Office

### 23:41 PST, Seven Minutes Later

 He was barely both feet in the door before she started talking.

 “As you have seen, Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth have been apprehended by the Teen Titans and handed over to the Jump City Police Department.” This was the first time that Xander had ever seen legitimate emotion on the Headmistress’ face. She must be incandescent beyond all belief to let even a glimmer of it show. He was glad she was too furious with the others to care about his minor-in-comparison transgressions against her property. “They have shamed this institution in front of the entire city and worse, they have damaged my reputation in the eyes of my client.”

 “Slade.” Xander clarified, there was no point in pretending he hadn’t analyzed every word and action between the trio and the Titans.

 “ _Yess._ ” The Headmistress hissed through her clenched teeth. Her rage cracked through her emotionless mask and revealed a miasma of insanity he had never realized lay underneath.

 Adeline Kane wasn’t some cold-hearted battleaxe of a mercenary; she was well and truly criminally insane. She wasn't the type of person whose temper broke in a whirlwind of thrown things and flailing arms, instead it seemed that her anger wound tighter and tighter like a spring. Her temper was a powerful dam, holding everything back and building pressure until she released it all at once with deadly intent behind it. Xander was very glad that she hadn’t cared to be a part of his life and education. He may not have survived the experience. "I will not be made a fool of in the eyes of **_THAT MAN!_** "

 The Headmistress visibly restrained herself, clutching white knuckled at her ever present clipboard as she regulated her breathing and tucked a loose lock of white hair behind her ear.

 “Your instructors tell me that you are the best possible candidate for an extraction. I have checked your records and find that I agree with that assessment. You will be assigned to see to their removal from police custody and return them to the school for disciplinary correction."

 "What will I get in exchange?" Xander was pushing his luck, but he wasn't going to let her set a precedent where she said 'jump' and he asked 'how high'. He refused to be HIVE's to command and he had no personal loyalty to her. His only allegiance was to himself, everyone else would have to pay if they wanted his cooperation.

 "You have received a HIVE education; I would think that is compensation enough."

 "You would think so, but I have a HIVE education because I stole it. You have _given_ me nothing and I owe you nothing. One thing this place has taught me is- if you are good at something, never do it for free. So, I ask again. What's in it for me? What will you give me to retrieve your students for you and help you save face?"

 "How about being allowed to continue your worthless life?" The black rage was creeping in around her edges again, but she kept her mask up. Good. He still wasn’t her biggest annoyance and could push a little farther.

 "It's not so worthless when you need me to get your favorites out of jail, now is it?” He didn’t even flinch at her threat. It wasn’t a bluff, with a woman like her it was always on the table as a possibility. She was a mercenary, she would weigh the risk and reward of the situation. It didn’t do her any good to kill him, so she wouldn’t. Basic mercenary math, his death wasn’t worth anything so she wouldn’t expend the energy. “Don’t try to threaten me right after admitting that you need my skills. I’m worth much more to you alive and your threat is meaningless."

 Headmistress Kane recoiled thoughtfully at that, reconsidering him. She had been dealing with him as if he were some fawning minion, one of the students who were actually happy to be in the Henchmen Track and wanted to be told what to do. He was expected to fall into place and she immediately resorted to simple strong-arm tactics when he didn’t. Thugs occasionally had bouts of arrogance or pride that needed to be beaten down before they got too full of themselves. He wasn’t a thug.

 It never even occurred to her that he might have a backbone, because he wasn't a supe and thus his strength of character wasn't worth that much consideration. They both knew that he had something the Headmistress wanted and that put him in a rare position of power over her, so long as her temper held. He could stand up to her briefly and prove himself worthy of her attention, but the second he asked too much she would end him. She changed tactics, starting a dialogue and feeling him out. “Is there a reason you believe yourself to be exempt from the standard compulsory education?”

 He snorted, "I'm not interested in standard or compulsory education. If I was I would still be in public school. I didn’t come here to become a minion; I came because of your pretty speech about a school that taught advanced skills. You may have brought me here to become an expendable drone, but I had different goals. I shaped myself into an asset and I refuse to lower myself to your expectations.”

 “What you want makes no difference to me.”

 “And yet here you are, in need of my particular set of skills. The set of skills I provided myself when you would have left me with nothing but the basics.”

 She considered him for a moment and flipped open his file, eyes skimming over the sparse information. He knew for a fact that aside from grades or instructor comments and assessments there was no personal information for her to use against him. "Your choice of classes is unbalanced. You have neglected large chunks of vital educational material."

 "Look, I'm not interested in the whole villainy thing. I'm a thief not a mercenary. I’m not interested in threats, hostages, warfare tactics, poisons, doomsday devices or any of that. I don’t want to destroy, I don’t want to rule, I don’t want to kill, I’m not an anarchist. What I want is much simpler.”

 Her eagle eyed gaze focused on him again as if he was a pet that had done something interesting. "Continue."

 "I want to wring every skill of worth out of this school and then I never want to see any of you again. My price is complete educational autonomy, access to the supe exclusive classes and exemption from disciplinary actions. I want to be allowed to attend whatever classes I choose and skip assignments I feel are irrelevant to my education without repercussion."

 "You want to be enrolled in the honors track." She eyed him with cold amusement. "You couldn't keep up with your lacking background, not to mention the fact that you have no power to speak of. The curriculum will eat you alive."

 He shrugged, "Then I’ll wash out and I won’t be your problem anymore. Let me worry about that. In return for continued and unrestricted use of your facility and staff, I will hone my skills by taking on various information gathering, extraction or retrieval missions for you. Do we have a deal?"

 "We do." She quickly shuffled through her papers and filled out the necessary change of status forms. "You will need a name."

 "No, I don't."

 "Every two-bit villain has a name, even those just starting out."

 "I'm not a villain. A thief whose name is known is a thief who got caught. I don't have a name, alias or otherwise. I hack without signature and steal without a calling card. My legal identity was declared dead years ago and wiped clean soon after. I don't intend to ever travel in a way that needs a passport, license or ID. No one is looking for me. I don't need a name or a gimmicky costume. I am whoever I want to be, and I want to be anonymous."

 She tsked, giving up on him and inking in ' _Anonymous_ ' next to Alias and dashing a line through the Name space where the invisible ghost of ' _Alexander Harris_ ' sat. She handed him the half blank form and he read through it quickly before grabbing a red correction pen off of her desk and filled out the date before dashing off a big slashed X through the Name and Signature lines. Her lips tightened at his use of a non-standard blue or black ink.

 "Allow me to officially welcome you to HIVE Academy, ' _Anonymous X_ '." When he grasped her outstretched hand she yanked him forward with tremendous strength. Shit, she was a supe.

He hadn't even considered that. He had underestimated her the same way she had underestimated him. She casually crushed his hand in hers and hissed in his face, "I will be watching you and if you cause me ANY trouble, I will sell you to the most sadistic scientist I can find who needs human test subjects. If they ever find your body it will never be identified."

 He hid his pain and grinned at her, riding high on his success at getting what he wanted and not ending up dead. "Well, thank you. I've made it a life's goal never to be identified."

Her returning grin was vindictive, "Head down to requisitions for a uniform."

"I just said that I'm not wearing a costume."

"Were you planning on breaking into JCPD in your civvies then?" She gestured dismissively at his wrinkled t-shirt and the sweatpants riding low on his hips. He liked to be comfortable while he was hacking. "You must truly be a wondrous thief if you believe you will make it one step inside the door without any equipment whatsoever."

"I… Fine. But just for this mission."

## HIVE - Requisitions Department

### April 4, 2012 00:22 PST

 “EW!” Xander looked down at himself in horror, the body hugging black under armor wasn’t so bad, if you ignored the iridescent yellow honeycombed pattern shining across the surface of it wherever the light caught it. The buttercup yellow armor on the other hand was hideous and bulky. He glared into the large multi-faceted eyes of his helmet and flicked one of the useless decorative antennae in disgust. “Talk about over branding. I am _not_ the Power Ranger monster of the week, this is ridiculous.”

 He stomped down the hall to the costume department in his bright sunshiny boots. What kind of a company would even manufacture mass amounts of armored boots in yellow? Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth could wait, they weren’t going anywhere until he got there and this atrocity needed to be dealt with right now. He was not going out in public dressed like a giant insect.

 Xander dug around the costume supplies looking for inspiration. Henchmen weren’t important enough to need individualized costumes, so he’d never been in the workshop before. The first thing he found was some spray on dye and he immediately doused his body suit in red to drown out the lemon holographic effect. He sprayed himself hard and long and at every possible angle, emptying two bottles of red dye all over himself as if he were some Axe wearing bro getting ready for a hot date. He didn’t even care that he was still wearing the suit and it might soak through. He would gladly sacrifice a layer of skin to scrubbing if it meant he wouldn’t be trying to infiltrate a police station while shining brighter than the sun. The dye brought the hue down about a hundred tones and the uneven coverage created a really cool fiery gleam he was a little proud of. It was still in a dumb hex pattern, but there was nothing he could do about that.

 He kicked the pile of armor pieces to the side. It wasn't exactly conducive to flexibility, stealth or moving quickly and it clashed horribly with his entire modus operandi, so he scrapped it. The armor was a hindrance that wasn't worth the protection it offered. If he was lame enough to get caught he deserved to get shot. His combat Masters would never let him live it down. He shivered at the thought of their revenge if he shamed their training in that way.

 Xander shamelessly dug through the project lockers for costumes to cannibalize. If they wanted to keep their stuff safe, the students should have used better locks. He hit pay dirt when he grabbed a pair of Kyd Wykkyd’s soft flexible boots and Billy Numerous’ simple cowl and goggles. Graciously, he left the HIVE standard helmet and boots in their place. What was good enough for one HIVE student was good enough for another. Stupid supe supremacy.

 After liberally dousing Billy’s fire engine red cowl in enough black dye to dull it to a bare ember of its former color he gave it up as good enough and slid it on. The small goggles fit tightly to his face and didn’t hinder his field of view the way the multi-faceted helmet did. HIVE soldiers weren’t actual bugs, how anyone expected them to be able to see through a kaleidoscope effect was beyond his comprehension.

 Xander hopped a bit on the balls of his feet, flexing his toes to get a feel for the boots. He took a running start across the room, diving forward between the legs of some chairs without even brushing them and tucking into a controlled tumble under one of the work benches. He used his momentum to flip up and jump-kick off a row of lockers, reversing directions smoothly and propelling his body backwards in an arc that an Olympic high-jumper would have been proud of. Mid-leap, he grabbed a pipe on the ceiling and swung up to slide his body through the small gap between the air ducts and the ceiling. He landed in a crouch on the seat of one of the tall work stools without a wobble. He grinned to himself at how seamlessly the costume flowed with his movements. Yeah, this could work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> X references the Titan's fight against Plasmus from Teen Titans 1.01 - 'Divide and Conquer' and was watching surveillance of Teen Titans 1.03 - 'Final Exam'
> 
> If you ever read the Teen Titans comics you know exactly how ridiculous the HIVE footsoldier's armor is.


	3. Excursion

## Jump City Police Department

### April 4, 2012 01:44 PST

 Jinx curled up on the thinly padded bench in the corner of the cell she shared with her teammates. Mammoth and Gizmo were sleeping soundly. Mammoth was so heavily sedated he didn’t care they’d been arrested and Gizmo, no matter how intelligent he was, still had the body of a child and crashed hard when he ran out of energy.

 Jinx was too miserable to sleep. Their first mission, the very first time they’d been hired out and it was a total failure. They hadn’t even managed the disgrace of a hasty retreat. They’d been handed over to the JCPD and her hands were encased in specially designed metal mitts that covered everything from the elbow down. She couldn’t shoot off a hex bolt unless she wanted her hands to be crushed when the metal warped. Gizmo was a whiz with technology, but these were old school manacles. She sighed and buried her face in her knees, frowning at a gaping run in her striped tights.

  _“No~body, knows the trouble I’ve seen, no~body knows my sorrow…”_ The faux deep voice made her jump and look around. She jolted to her feet and away from the concrete wall when gloved fingers waggled at her through the holes in the air vent in the wall over her head and she realized that there was a face peering down at her from the grill.

 “Billy?” Jinx peered up at the familiar mask above her.

 “Do I _look_ like that narcissistic self-multiplying hick?”

 “Yes.” Mammoth rumbled, peeling one glazed and half-lidded eye open to watch them.

 “You are wearing his mask.” Jinx pointed out.

 The unknown teen gave a dramatic pause, as if considering, “Point to the lady.”

 “Who the crud is this suck-pirate?” Gizmo demanded grouchily. He hated being woken up before he’d gotten a full night’s sleep.

 “The Headmistress sent me to retrieve you.”

 “Yeah? …and what diptastic powers do you have that we don’t?”

 “I don’t have any powers.”

 “ **WHAT?!?** I'm not getting rescued by some scuzzbrained henchpuke.” Gizmo grumbled, his whole face scrunching up in an attempt to look condescending. It didn’t work very well on a 10-year-old, he just looked like he was about to cry.

 “Oh? Were you planning on taking a relaxing time out in Belle Reve? ...or were you hoping Blackgate took minors, because nothing but max security is gonna keep you away from the headmistress’ punishment.”

 Jinx couldn’t help fidgeting uncomfortably at that, “Is she angry?”

 “She was showing actual emotion.”

 The pink haired witch flinched. “We’re so dead.”

 “Not my problem. I was just hired to escort you back.” The vent cover quietly popped out of it’s setting and Jinx realized that he’d been so quiet that he’d been able to unscrew all four corners before drawing her attention. He flipped gracefully out of the vent, landing silently on his toes and was followed out of the vent by one of the Headmistress’ oversized mechanical bee. “Buzz, tools.”

 The bee’s thorax popped open and it reached its six legs up into the cavity to produce a small bundle. The bee flew over and dropped its package into his waiting hand and he unrolled it into a set of delicate looking lockpicks in various sizes and shapes. His fingers skimmed over the options and chose a few. It was the work of seconds for him to get her out of the cuffs. Jinx was impressed; she’d never seen someone handpick a lock so fast. Any of her classmates with powers usually just blasted them off or manipulated them with magic. She rubbed the feeling back into her wrists and hands, taking comfort from letting her power spark freely over her fingertips.

 “Buzz, adrenaline shot.” The bee produced a nasty looking hypodermic needle with a six inch tip. Their still unknown rescuer reached over and stabbed Mammoth directly in the chest, injecting the whole dose straight into his heart. The hulking teen gasped as his eyes cleared and focused. He reached up and ripped the needle out of his chest, crushing it in his big meaty hand. He glared down at his unrepentant attacker. “Awake now?”

 “Yes.” Mammoth growled in resentment, frowning even deeper as the smaller teen met his gaze and refused to back down.

 “Did you have to stab him in the chest?” Jinx asked, peeking from between her fingers and relaxing when she saw that the needle had been bent into an unrecognizable lump and chucked into the corner.

 “It’s not like an epi-pen to the thigh would have helped much.” He pulled out a different selection of tools and headed towards the cell door.

 “We’ll take it from here.” Jinx hated feeling like a damsel in distress and sent a hex bolt whizzing past his head to blow the lock out. The door blasted open, off of its hinges and bounced off the opposing cell with a reverberating clang. She cringed a bit at the sound. He just turned to look at her in amusement.

 “This is why I was the one sent to get you out. You supes can’t do anything quietly.”

 “Screw quiet, I want out.” Gizmo complained.

 “You’re just lucky that I brought knockout gas with me and dosed the guards on my way in. You’d be sitting ducks otherwise.” He gestured pointedly at Mammoth who was wavering on his feet, the adrenaline barely holding off the effects of the pharmacy they’d emptied into his veins. “I would think you'd want to avoid using your powers indoors and dropping another building on yourself tonight… but as I’m just a ‘lowly henchman’ I’ll follow your lead.” He bowed mockingly, “Ladies and children first.”

 Jinx turned up her nose at his slight on her abilities and stalked out of the cell, fists clenched and back ramrod straight. Gizmo tried to kick the teen in the shin but was easily evaded as he leapt out of the way to perch on the metal bench. Mammoth was doing all he could to stay upright and put one foot in front of the other. They continued on in that fashion, Jinx leading the way with Gizmo stomping after her and Mammoth swaying and weaving, leaving divots in the walls wherever he bounced off. Their rescuer followed along, radiating mocking amusement, like he was a babysitter keeping his eye on the kids as they went on an 'adventure'.

 The back of Jinx’s neck prickled with awareness of his presence and gaze, even though his steps didn’t make any sound. She found herself constantly glancing into the ghostly reflections of office windows and computer screens to check that he was still there. He moved like a phantom, and she had the feeling that he’d disappear if she took her eye off him for too long. Gizmo made them track down his fried tech-pak before they could leave, but they made it back to the HIVE Academy without any mishaps.

 Jinx found her pace slowing as they approached the Headmistress' office, her indignant stride away from the unknown threat behind her was hindered by the knowledge of the danger ahead of her. With a mocking smile at her faltering confidence, the self proclaimed henchman took the lead again and brought them before the Headmistress, knocking confidently on her door.

 "That will be all, Anonymous, you may leave."

 He sketched a passable but very sarcastic curtsy, dipping his head as he lifted an invisible skirt. With one last grin and flash of mocking brown eyes in Jinx's direction he was gone and they were alone in a room with their Headmistress in such a state that she looked ready to spit fire. Jinx didn't know what Headmistress Kane’s powers were, but she desperately hoped fire breathing wasn't actually one of them.

 She almost wanted 'Anonymous' back. Her eyes narrowed in consideration as she thought of the new kid. He seemed familiar, but she hadn't ever spent any time getting to know the kids in the Henchmen Track before. They were supposed to be nothing but fodder, certainly not friends or allies. She may have to re-evaluate that assessment. Assuming she survived the Headmistress’ displeasure.

## HIVE - X’s Room

### 02:11 PST

 Xander flopped back on his bed as Buzz returned to his place on the wallscreen. "Buzz, start a folder for Missions on the server and download all files about tonight's mission into it. Add the footage to the database as well, update files on Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth."

 The robo-bug obediently started whirring and glowing as it compiled and sorted data.

 "Buzz, do a general search, connections between 'Adeline Kane' and 'Slade'."

 The bug beeped acknowledgement of the new command and continued processing.

 Xander evaluated his night. His first mission was a success, almost pathetically so. He didn't even feel challenged enough to be proud of it. Now that he had time, he mulled over the deal he had made with the Headmistress. Overall it could be considered a victory, but it felt hollow. Having saved the most gossiped about members of HIVE from their failure, he would be the talk of the school. He had lost his anonymity, ironic that it was the name name the Headmistress had given him. Knowing their obsession with alter egos, Anonymous would be the name on every tongue tomorrow. He would be front and center in the collective consciousness of the school. Everyone would peel back the shadows in order to watch him, talk about him and size him up as a threat. Overnight he would go from being a nobody to being a contender for a school ranking he didn’t even care about.

 If he was lucky everyone would be looking for him in costumed form and among the throngs of henchmen. He’d chucked his makeshift costume in the back of his closet and was joining the supe classes. They'd be looking for a costumed identity so he would have to use his face as his mask. He would hide 'Anonymous' behind 'X'. If he couldn’t have anonymity, then he’d have to build a reputation for being unapproachable and untouchable. He would need to change his tactics, but he could still swing this.

 He sighed. People were so much work, it was exhausting. He couldn't remember why he used to like them so much. He fell asleep to Buzz's eerie yellow glow and dreamed of being strangled by a ridiculous fuzzy sweater and citrus-aloe scented red hair.

## HIVE - Introductory Magic Class

### 09:21 PST

 Xander once read in Giles' books that everyone had the potential to do magic at a basic level, but fewer could actually become full blown practitioners. He had tested himself and was a little disappointed to find that he'd never be the Sorcerer Supreme, but he still had enough potential ability to be useful. Something as small as an unlocking cantrip would be endlessly helpful. He was determined to find and train his miniscule ability to within an inch of it's life and get the most possible out of it. Magic was a super-useful life hack and it could be a great ace in the hole against unsuspecting supes.

 He thought he had a pretty decent grasp on the flow of vital energy within his body due to long hours with his HIVE shifu, meditating on his chakras. All he needed was instruction and practice in emitting it outside of his body in a useful and directed way without either: A - sending it to uselessly fizzle off into the air or B - accidentally killing himself by venting all of his energy, leaving none to keep his organs functioning. In other words, he needed to learn spells and cantrips that he would be able to use even with his meager power levels.

 He used his newfound educational freedom to attend the basic, introductory level magic class. It had been out of his reach as a henchmen. Despite the disgust curling the lip of the head practitioner at his presence there was no comment made as he got comfortable in one of the seats at the back of the classroom. Obviously the Headmistress had held up her end of the bargain.

 X made sure to arrive early for his first class, he wanted to get a good seat in one of the corners with his back against a wall, so he was surrounded on as few sides as possible. Being early also meant that he could better gauge the reactions to his presence as students filtered in one or two at a time. They were understandably surprised by his sudden attendance to their class in the middle of the term but no one approached him. They seemed nervous.

 He pulled out a communication device he had been working on for his engineering class. It listened to sounds too quiet for the human range and displayed any words it heard to its small screen. He pretended to be fiddling with the settings, aiming it at several different clusters of costumed gossipers and although the translation was nowhere near perfect he still got a sense of what the whispered conversations were about. He put the device away and smirked, lounging back in his seat in obvious arrogance, trying to give the impression of a predator at rest.

 They were talking about his lack of costume and speculating on who he was. As an unknown newbie, Xander had been prepared to fight for even a small bit of respect from the gossip mill, but for once things were going his way. The consensus seemed to be that he was like the Headmistress or the 'golden' trio. He was so powerful and dangerous that he didn't need a mask to hide his face because he could easily take care of anyone who crossed him. It was well known that only the most dangerous villains could afford to have their faces known.

 Xander smirked coldly at a young acolyte who was watching him curiously and she squeaked and turned away. She could have squished him like a bug, but so long as she didn't know that and feared his 'strength' she wouldn't even think of trying it. Neither would anyone else. It was the ultimate bluff.

 The instructor attempted to humiliate him by inviting him to the front to help him demonstrate a spell for the class, but Xander politely and firmly refused. Hobbled by the Headmistress' orders to let the teen do what he wanted, the instructor reigned in his rage at being forced to back down from an uppity student and instead asked the class for volunteers. The way he'd backed off had the whole class whispering and seemed to confirm in their minds that the newcomer must be an untouchable _Somebody_ if even the teachers were afraid to go against him.

 For the most part Xander enjoyed the class, despite the instructor who seemed to be a prime example of the usually inaccurate cliche that teachers were people who could not use their skills competently in the real world. The instructor was magically flashy and knew his stuff, but he didn't have any sense of presence. He was a petty, weak minded fool of a man who relied on theatrics to get respect. Not that Xander could point fingers over that.

 Some of the information they covered had been in Giles' books, but self-study couldn't hold a candle to face to face instruction. X couldn’t risk attempting any practice in class or he would shatter his image of competence, but refusing classwork would continue to give him the illusion of power and being above it all. He could practice on his own in private, so that any backfires weren't as humiliating.

 Halfway through their double-block the class was interrupted by a knock at the door. The instructor had worked himself into a rather volatile state by this point due to the disrespectful whispers and the ever present distraction that X represented. He flung the door open with a twitch of his glowing hand and barked a sharp, mystically echoing, " _ **WHAT!**_ "

 Jinx was standing in the hallway, looking humiliated. Even her perky pink hair-horns seemed to sag a bit and her mascara was reduced to day old smudges. She looked exhausted and upset and one of her striped tights was torn at the knee. Xander wondered if she'd slept at all since the night before. He had been able to go straight to bed after the mission and get his typical four hours, but Headmistress Kane had looked like she was gearing up for a rant and the three baby villains wouldn't have been allowed to escape until she was satisfied. "Headmistress Kane wishes me to join your class."

 There was a cruel gleam in the self proclaimed Grand Mage's eye as he realized that he hadn't missed his chance to humiliate someone this class period. "Oh, _do tell_. Why would such an _accomplished_ mistress of magic such as yourself need such a basic introductory class?"

 Xander could see Jinx's hands bleach white with pressure where they were fisted at her sides. He wondered if she was trying to tamp down on anger or embarrassment. He figured it was anger when she met the petty, smug little man's eyes and spoke clearly. "The Headmistress feels that if I am going to make mistakes in the field and fail missions that have been assigned to me then I do not deserve the title of HIVE graduate and should be re-educated from the beginning."

 There were snickers around the room as the little bastards delighted in her humiliation. Xander was begrudgingly impressed with her refusal to react to their taunting. Her skills actually did put her above these idiots, teacher included. They might delight in her downfall, but she would rise again quickly enough and he was very sure she'd never forget who had dared to laugh at her.

 She silently stared down the weak mage's arrogant posturing until he shifted uncomfortably and covered himself by giving a grand and condescending gesture for her to take her seat. As if she was unable to see that there was only one seat open. The seat right next to Xander. Jinx stalked down the aisle without making eye contact with any of the other magic users. Her eyes skated over his dark little corner before they shot back to him and narrowed.

 Jinx held her peace and waited until the 'Grand Mage' was sketching out a diagram in flashy holographic magic against the wall with his back to the class before she leaned over to hiss at him, "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

 He grinned at her in amusement, "I am a student of the HIVE academy, where else would I be?"

 "I thought you said that you didn't have any powers."

 He dropped his grin, looking around to see if anyone was listening to their hissed conversation, "Everyone is capable of magic."

 "Not enough to pass this class."

 He noncommittally hummed his agreement. "How did you know it was me?"

 "I recognized the 'amused at your pain and humiliation' look in your eyes from last night." She drawled flatly. "I'm not usually put in a position to get that look and it's only been a few hours since we last saw each other. It wasn't that hard."

 The instructor turned around again and they broke off their conversation to at least pretend to pay attention. Xander felt her penetrating stare burning into the side of his head for the rest of the period and was mildly surprised that Jinx rushed out the second class was over. He packed up his things slowly to avoid the crush of students exiting and sauntered out in his own time. He wasn't shocked at all when he was ambushed and dragged into a side corridor almost immediately. He could have snapped her wrist or thrown her, but he was curious what she would say.

 "What do you want?" Jinx demanded, pink hexfire flickering over her hand.

 "I was about to ask you the same thing. I'm not the one dragging their peers into dark corridors. People might think we're doing unsavory things back here."

 "We're villains. Everything we do is unsavory."

 "Ah, that's where you're wrong. I'm not a villain. I'm a thief."

 "They're the same thing!" Jinx cried, exasperated.

 "Not by half." He was getting tired of explaining this again and again. There was a very clear division in his mind. He didn't know why it was so difficult for others to grasp. It never occurred to him that his view of morality was unique to himself and the whole hero/villain dichotomy was seen differently by others. Then again most of the costumed set probably hadn't read as many comics as he had since they played right into all the worst tropes. With great power, and all that.

 It was unbelievable, but most people seemed to believe that Heroes were always good and Villains were always bad. Angel/Angelus had proven otherwise. No one could be trusted to always act one way or the other. People were more complicated than that. Maybe he needed to draw a graph to carry around for when he was inevitably asked this again. A Kinsey Scale of Morality and Honor Codes. "Criminal, yes. Villain, no."

 Jinx stared at him incredulously, "Why are you even in this school then? If you have no powers and you don't want to be a villain."

 "People without powers aren't powerless." Quicker than she could follow, X physically overpowered her and held her arms restrained, safely pointed away from him. He trapped her against the wall until she stopped struggling, "There are plenty of useful classes in this school that aren't ' _Theory of Mayhem_ ' or ' _Death Threat Composition_ '. Heroes and cops don't care what your motivations are if you're on the wrong side of the law. I'm a survivor. I will do whatever it takes to thrive in ANY situation but just because I'm out for myself and society categorizes me as a villain, doesn't mean I have to accept or live up to the title."

 "Train me and I'll teach you." She gasped into the wall, giving him pause.

 "What?"

 "You want to learn magic. I'm much better than that sorry excuse for a mage." He let her go and let her turn around to look him in the eye, backing away warily in case she started throwing magic at him. "You were right about my physical skills though. I've never been any good, it's why they teamed me up with Mammoth. He can take care of pretty much anyone we encounter. Teach me to move and fight like you do and I'll teach you to use whatever magic you have."

 "Why should I?"

 She grinned viciously, "Because otherwise I'll tell the whole school that you have no powers. How long do you think you can last with multiple squads of villains gunning for you?"

 X floundered for a moment, mind racing. He had started a file on her but, because he had been so detached from the student body and it's members, the file was slim and unhelpful. The only embarrassing or damaging thing he knew about her was the failure against the Titans. The whole school already knew about that, so blackmailing her with it was impossible. He was stuck. He had nothing to hold over her and she was ready to expose him. She had no reason not to, with her recent humiliation she was hitting rock bottom. No matter how quickly she recovered, at this moment she had nothing to lose.

 Jinx knew that she'd won and stared him down, waiting for his submission to her will. In that moment she reminded him of all the best bits of Queen C and Willow's resolve face and the steely look Buffy got in her eye that even Giles knew not to question. Finally, he ground out a gruff, "Fine"

 "Great!" She pecked him on the cheek with exaggerated friendliness and he was glad her makeup was a day old and didn’t leave lipstick marks. "Don't look so sour, I'll go easy on you."

 X watched her flounce off with her big goth boots clunking down the hall. They would be the first to go if she wanted any chance at stealth. He was furious with himself. He hadn't even managed to get through one day without someone figuring out who he was. With a huff, he sulked back to his room in defeat, collapsed face first into his bed and declared to his attentive robotic pet. "I hate people."

## HIVE - Meditation Room 3

### 17:09 PST

 Xander was sitting cross-legged on the floor across from Jinx in a rarely used mediation room. The wonder of mediation was that you could do it anywhere, so those who actually spent the time to calm and reorganize their minds tended to have favorite places to do so and didn't need to seek out the generic matted room. The mats would help later when it was Xander's turn to be teacher. From what he had seen of Jinx's fight against the Titans she needed to learn how to take a fall without breaking something.

 Jinx took a deep breath and seemed to organize her thoughts, "Ok, you seem to know a little bit about magic. It's like any other skill, everyone can do it but that doesn't mean you'll do it _well_. Take singing for example. Everyone is capable of trying to sing, but that doesn't mean you can project your voice, read music, keep a tune, not shatter eardrums or sound even remotely decent when you do it. Think of me as your voice coach. From what you've told me you can access your magic already. I just need to teach you to shape and project it."

 It was easier said than done. They spent quite a few long afternoons getting frustrated with each other and walking away aching and angry. It was lucky they were both such stubborn people. As the weeks passed Jinx's muscle tone and reflexes slowly improved and X gained enough control over his powers to make his hands glow faintly. He still couldn't project it outside of his body.

 Jinx was starting to get disappointed with his lack of progress. She was such a natural with magic that she had trouble explaining it's use in a way he could understand. "Magic is a part of you. It's good at what you're good at. Think about it, my magic is as pink as my hair and eyes because it's a part of me and that's my natural coloring. What are your natural talents? What are you good at that could be improved by magic?"

 That was a new angle. It kinda made sense a little when stated that way. Xander had been thinking of magic as a force external to himself, something in him but not of him. He focused on his sense of self. His need to know everything, to gather and classify and hoard information. He had an almost obsessive need to know his surroundings and identify the threats or quickly assess the value of a potential mark. He was shocked out of his concentration by a flicker of light across his vision. Excited, he told Jinx about it.

 "I didn't see anything." She just raised an eyebrow at his uncharacteristic enthusiasm. He usually projected a sullen and detached personality. She smirked at him as he settled down immediately, hiding his emotions again. They had fallen into a comfortable routine and he hadn't even noticed when he started trusting her enough to show parts of his real self.

 He tried again and got another brighter flash across his vision. After a few more attempts, the flash was brighter and more distinct, but Jinx still couldn't see it. He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. Her gaze followed the movement of his hand and narrowed in thought. "Maybe you'll never be able to project your magic offensively. Try focusing it on your eyes instead. You might be able to give yourself super senses."

 He froze and let his hand drop, meeting her gaze. She had long since abandoned the proper lotus position when they were practicing and was stretched out, ankle over ankle, propped up on one elbow as she played with hex sparks in her other hand. "Is that even possible?"

 "It's your magic. We don't know what's possible for you." She rolled her eyes and the sparks in her hand flared up to a fist sized ball of pink flame. "No one else can manipulate bad luck like I can. It's a special snowflake thing. If you're really powerful you might have enough magic that you can manipulate the energies to mimic any effect, but everyone has a focus, something that they can do better than anyone else. Someone else might need years of study to alter luck and probability, but I accidentally started shooting off hexbolts one day without any effort. You're never gonna have enough power that you'll get to decide what abilities to mold it towards. What we're trying to do is figure out what you already can do but don't know about."

 "When did you start getting to be the smart one?" He grumbled, settling back into his meditative pose.

 "I've always been the smart one of the two of us. You got the stealth and the strength and the street smarts. I got the brains, beauty and the destructive power."

 Xander closed his eyes and his focus sank down into the center of his sense of self. He had initially visualized the magic as a self contained ball in his chest, but now he imagined it as a part of him, running through his veins, flexing side by side with the fibers of his muscles, holding strong with his bones, laid flush with his skin. He imagined the magic in his eyes, rather than trying to pull a bit of power from his chest up to his eyes, he imagined strengthening what was already there. He imagined the magic sliding to the front of his eye, layering over his cornea and let it show him what it wanted.

 When his eyes opened he was amazed. He could see everything much clearer, but it was more than that. He focused on Jinx and was surprised that he could see the magic flowing through her, it was like looking at the iridescent shimmer on the surface of a bubble. It whirled and twisted inside her in that bright familiar pink.

 The biggest shock was the names. They draped over Jinx like a shroud, he stared at them for a long moment trying to figure them out. The biggest was her name, Jinx, but smaller things wound around her like Nicole Diaz, or HIVE Three. It looked like every name or slur or label Jinx had ever been called or answered to was clinging to her, he was sad to see things like 'freak' and 'monster' curling possessively around her. Xander reached out and tried to grab the letters, his hand swiping through them uselessly.

 "Does Nicole Diaz mean anything to you?" Jinx jolted hard and stared at him in shock.

 She licked her lips nervously, "It's… it's my name. My REAL name. Before I became Jinx."

 "Oh, good." He said flatly, "I made a scan spell. How very level one warlock."

 "No, you don't understand." Jinx said, bouncing a little in her delight at discovering something new about magic. She wasn't kidding when she called herself the smart one, she became very Hermione at times. "No one knows that. No one I know of can do that. Think about it. Heroes and villains wear costumes and masks for a reason, they don't want people to know who they are. This is an incredible leg up on the competition. No one will be able to hide themselves from you. No disguise will fool you. Identities are the BIGGEST and best kept secret in the costumed set and you can totally bypass it with one look."

 The possibilities unfurled in his head. This was probably the most useful magical skill he could have picked up. Even if he had mastered some big flashy magic he never would have used it. His style was much more suited to stealth, information gathering and misdirection.

 "So, um…" Jinx stared over Xander's shoulder, stuttering gaze not quite able to meet his eyes as she blushed faintly. "You know my name and I still don't know yours."

 "I don't have one." Xander stood up abruptly. "I was declared dead and wiped all of my records. I don't exist. I don't have a name anymore."

 "That's so sad." Jinx stared at him in horror. "You don't have a costumed identity and you don't have a real identity? What are people supposed to call you?"

 "X." He stated shortly, but when she just kept staring at him with pity in her eyes, he couldn't take it. "We'll have to take a rain check on your lesson. I've suddenly got a headache."

Her cat slit eyes narrowed, but she let him have his flimsy excuse and silently watched him leave without trying to stop him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nicole Diaz is one of the known aliases for the comic book Jinx, who is VERY different from the TT cartoon Jinx, but I figured I'd give her a nod of acknowledgement.
> 
> Gizmo's childish dialogue is SO much fun to write


	4. Exacerbate

## HIVE - Cafeteria

### April 17, 2012 12:35 PST

 "I've been thinking." Jinx plunked her tray down and slid into the seat across from Xander. She stole an apple off of his tray and gave him the extra chocolate milk she had picked up. She didn't seem to realize that not only had he been avoiding her for several days, but that this was the first time they had publicly spoken. Her obvious comfort with his presence let pretty much everyone know that they had been meeting secretly for a while. Xander sighed at her complete lack of situational awareness. It continued to be her biggest weakness.

 "Jinx."

 "I think the reason you can't do any offensive or defensive magic is because you trust your body more than you trust your magic."

 " _Jinx._ "

 "I mean," She gestured at him with a fork skewered french fry, "You know exactly what you're physically strong enough to handle and you also know that you are and always will be magically weak. Basically, you can't trust your magic to hold out and so you don't trust it at all and can only use it passively. I'm sure if we trained you a little more-"

 " **Jinx!** "

 "What?" She frowned at him for interrupting her analysis and plans for future lessons. Her jaw was set belligerently as she dared him with fierce eyes to bring up their not-fight. Apparently, she wasn't that easy to scare off.

 "That's great, and I actually kinda agree with you, but did we have to do this here?" He gestured at the completely silent cafeteria around them. All of the HIVE students were staring at them in shock. See-more was even pouring soda in his lap as he tilted the bottle and completely missed his mouth. The kid had a heartbroken look on his face. Pretty much the whole school knew about his hopeless crush on Jinx. Mammoth made eye contact with Xander and cracked his knuckles threateningly and Gizmo slashed across his throat with one finger. No one moved on their team member without their say-so. "The whole school now thinks we're secretly dating."

 "OH!" Jinx blushed, "I-Um, sorry. I was just so excited to have figured it out. I'll leave you alone."

 "Jinx." He caught her wrist as she reached for her tray. He ignored her pulse jumping under his fingers and the way the blush on her face spread. He was definitely not in a place emotionally where he could handle her being attracted to him, what he needed was a friend. Hopefully if he ignored it, she'd lose interest or at least redirect her affections. "I don't care what they say. Never have. I just wanted to warn you." He smirked deviously, "...and let you know that the next thing we'll be working on is your situational awareness."

 Before she could react, he reached up and karate chopped her in the head between her hair horns. "You're too oblivious. You need to pay more attention."

 She pouted at him and rubbed her head. X easily distracted her by asking about her theory and let her voice wash over him as he kept a wary eye on the table across the room where a conspicuously empty seat was bracketed by a glowering Mammoth and Gizmo. He hadn't realized they were so possessive. No wonder See-more had never made a move despite his complete infatuation. The kid actually had some self-preservation instincts. Xander would have to keep his guard up. He had no doubt the dastardly duo were already planning his disappearance.

 He turned back to Jinx, just as her eyes narrowed at him, "Are you even listening to me?"

 "Sorry, I just. Did you know that Gizmo's real name is Mikron O'Jeneus? Or that Mammoth's is Baran Flinders? Jesus, no wonder they put on a costume and changed their names. I bet they got teased a lot as kids."

 Jinx barked out a laugh, "No way! Everyone goes by their alias, so they never told me." She smiled at him, "If nothing else your magic would be excellent for blackmail."

 "Not a villain." He reminded her. She just rolled her eyes at him.

## HIVE - Hallways

### April 24, 2012 20:13 PST

 Having his 'relationship' with Jinx outed gave Xander a surprising boost in popularity. Even in a high school of backstabbing villains it was apparently an ingrained social rule that if you hung out with the cool kids you were considered a cool kid yourself. Jinx's public show of approval, deliberate or not, cemented X's position at the top of the food chain. For now. Popularity was a slippery slope.

 Unpleasant side effects of her endorsement included being on the hitlist of a 6'5", 300 pound human wrecking ball and a 4'2" technological gremlin, who was so young that he still hadn't grown out of calling people such charming things as douchewaffle and pit sniffer. Mammoth and Gizmo were gunning for him. He wasn't even sure if they knew he was Anonymous and had been the one to break them out of the JCPD. That information was equally likely to deter them or spur them on. They hadn't been overly pleased to need rescuing.

 X wasn't worried about Mammoth. He may be slightly more mature than the infantile Gizmo, but he wasn't half as intelligent and his revenge was uncreative and on par with typical high school bullying. Xander was constantly evading his rib breaking shoves in the hallway and grew very adept at dodging spitballs and balloons filled with various disgusting fluids. Mammoth was an amateur as far as prank wars and bullying were concerned. He'd pummel X if he could, but he had to get his hands on the slippery thief first, which wasn't going to happen. X would need to be tied up, drugged and concussed before he slowed down enough for Mammoth to catch him.

 Gizmo on the other hand was more skilled and more creative than his hulking comrade, and statistically quite a bit more intelligent than Xander, thus making him a much more legitimate threat. He started small by attacking X's public HIVE accounts. He switched passwords, deleted assignments and loaded a fake blue screen of death that popped up every time X signed into the school systems. It was all small time stuff, clearly Gizmo's superiority complex blinded him to the fact that X was in no way technologically illiterate. He corrected all the small hacks and straightened out his accounts with ease, passing in his backup copies of assignments that had gone missing.

 One day at lunch the soda dispenser went nuts and doused X with pure, unmixed cola syrup until the sugary sweet goop positively dripped from him. Everyone started laughing and clapping, there were even some catcalls. Gizmo smirked at him in triumph but X had come a long way from being the insecure class clown he used to be. He kept eye contact with Gizmo, visibly unnerving the irritating imp as he reached out and pressed the water dispenser, secretly pleased when it too had been redesigned to spray him. He kept completely calm and casually hosed himself down, right there in the cafeteria under the disbelieving eyes of the student body.

 Several people made the connection between the prank and his unwavering eye contact with Gizmo and whispering started up immediately as Bumblebee pulled her girlfriends, the biggest gossips in the school, into a heated discussion about the confrontation. The technological prankster squirmed uncomfortably as people loudly speculated what X would do to him as punishment. Xander smirked coldly at the pint-sized terror as it became clear that his cool under fire had turned the prank around to his benefit.  X's reputation as a dangerous villain was still going strong and there was a flurry of gossip about whether Gizmo would go missing or turn up dead.

 It was quiet for all of a few hours before Gizmo's short attention span kicked in and he decided that retaliation wouldn't be coming. The tiny twerp's next move was to take control of the school building itself and turn it against X. The base’s pneumatic doors would slam in his face and lock him into and out of classrooms and he had to avoid the elevators completely.

 A few times the doors even went into lockdown mode, an extra set of blast panels with yellow and black reflective taping slamming in his face as bright flashing alarm lights blinded him. All of his personal codes were rejected and he took to memorizing other student’s codes just to get around. Luckily his reflexes were trained to the point that no matter how quickly the automatic doors slammed he was never physically injured. Still, X made sure to never enter a room that didn't have an alternative exit. His focus had always been on getting in and out of facilities without being detected, but this was good practice for evading security in a worst case scenario.

 Then came the climate control. Gizmo started altering the A/C and heating in Xander's classrooms making him sweat through his clothes and then chilling him to the bone over and over again. He tried to stick to common areas, because the hacker wouldn't dare to actually cook other students. He would keep to unpleasant but non-lethal temperatures. The dehydration and stress on his body gave Xander a constant headache, but he persevered, pretending he was learning to endure torture techniques and extreme conditions. One never knew when they'd need to steal from a greenhouse in the middle of winter or break into a refrigerated facility in the height of summer.

 Finally, Gizmo went too far. Xander’s luck ran out and he found himself on the wrong side of an airtight door as the fire suppression system kicked in with a whirr of fans. He watched in horror as high-expansion chemical foam poured out of vents in the walls. When Gizmo had first started to turn the HIVE base against him X had done some research on the building’s schematics. The sprinkler systems were supposed to go off in rooms with occupants, the flame suppressing foam was so toxic it was only for empty rooms because the fluorochemical foam wasn't people-safe stuff. In seconds, the astringent tide was up to his knees and he quickly waded to a nearby desk to climb out of the chemical soup. X managed to escape the white swamp before the chemical foam could reach more than waist height but he was already so dizzy on fumes that he wobbled drunkenly on the desk as it seemed to buck under him.  
  
The fire control system was designed to keep pumping foam until the room was completely filled. If he didn’t do something quickly he was either going to drown or suffocate on the rapidly toxifying air, whichever happened first. His chest burned for clean oxygen and his sinuses and throat felt scorched from inhaling bits of the foam. X searched the rapidly flooding room for another exit with tear blurred eyes and was glad to see the vague shape of an air vent in the ceiling.  
  
The foam had reached the height of his knees again and he was forced to pull his shirt up over his head in an attempt to protect his face as he descended from the desk. X was immediately immersed over his head in stinging foam as he painstakingly dragged the desk under the vent with quickly numbing fingers. His hands and feet felt like they were tied to balloons as he scrambled inelegantly back onto the desk, slipping on the smooth foamy surface.  
  
He couldn’t breathe or see or even feel properly as he fumbled around over his head for the vent cover. If it hadn’t been for the flash of pain clearing his head a bit when he sliced his fingers on the smooth metal, he might have died right there. As it was, his arms were shaking and unsteady as he lifted himself into the vent and crawled painfully away.  
  
X followed the duct for what felt like forever until the weight of his knees broke through another vent opening and he crashed painfully to the floor of a random hallway. He thrashed around in panic and pain as he fought to escape the constriction of his sodden shirt until his head finally popped free. He lay there gasping and wheezing and wiping frantically at the mess of foam and tears on his face. Gradually, he became aware of how hard his heart was throbbing in his ears. He was terrified and he’d been a single mistake from death, but he was alive.

He laughed a little unsteadily to himself. For the first time in years he was actually glad to be alive. He had faced his own death again and fought it tooth and nail, not ready to give in. He was finally moving beyond his losses and no longer felt like he was just waiting to follow the Scoobies. He could let them go.  
  
X climbed unsteadily to his feet and slowly shuffled his way back to his rooms. He leaned carefully against the wall as he struggled for breath with each heavy step. He may be grateful to have had a life affirming experience, but he was no longer even a little bit amused by the escalating pranks. He could easily have died tonight. He would still have to very carefully monitor his breathing and worry about chemical burns in his lungs. He couldn't pretend that this was just an out of hand bullying situation.

Gizmo was a legitimate psychopath, and Xander had let himself forget that he was in a school that deliberately bred monsters. He had been humoring their hurt macho pride and territorial posturing. He had even kept Jinx from knowing how bad it had gotten because he could fight his own battles and didn't want to make his only friend choose between him and her team. A small, hurt part of him whispered that she would choose them and he would be alone again. He desperately didn't want to be alone again, all he had was Jinx and Buzz, and the robotic bug didn't even have a personality.

 No more. He was done. Mammoth had grown bored, but obviously Gizmo wasn't going to stop until someone stopped him.

 Xander sighed in relief then coughed harshly as his door swooshed open without fighting him for the first time in the last week. His relief was short lived as he took in the mess that was his living space. His private space that he'd made sure no one was allowed to enter. It was the scene of a disaster. Everything was trashed. The mattress had been torn in half and the bed frame twisted beyond recognition. All of his clothes had been thrown on the floor and by the smell Mammoth had even pissed on them. He really was a backwards neanderthal, literally marking his handiwork. Xander's computers and equipment were fried, the casings melted and still smoking lightly.

 What really made him see red and decide it was beyond time to strike back hard was the sight of Buzz, splayed out and sparking from where he had been pinned to the screen wall with twisted pieces of Xander's broken office chair. His silly little robo-bug had been brutalized and his wings had been ripped off and crushed into a mess of twisted parts. Tears that had nothing to do with his irritated eyes trickled down his face.

 A giant cartoon representation of Gizmo's face grinned out at him from the screen wall as an obnoxious laugh track played over and over, taunting him. Xander shattered the screen with a punch, breathing raggedly as he tried to contain his rage. Mammoth and Gizmo had better pray to whatever Gods they held dear because they had invoked the wrath of someone born and raised on the Hellmouth. They had no idea what was coming for them.

 After a long shower, X spent hours cleaning up the mess, and it was enough time to take the sharp edge off of his anger. He no longer felt like he was going to kill them, it wasn't his style. He wanted to scare the monsters and teach them a lesson, not become one himself. He would hit them where it hurt. They were arrogant supes with a superiority complex a mile wide. He was going to nail them right in the pride, because that would cause the most humiliation and they'd never forget. Never fuck with someone from Sunnydale. He had lived through things that would shatter their minds.

 He was going to show them what it felt like to lose what you value most.

## HIVE - Jinx’s Bedroom

### April 27, 2012 05:08 PST

 Jinx turned off her alarm and flopped over in bed, her pink hair strewn everywhere across her pillow. She was always one of the first students up because it took so long to get her hair just right. She loved the quiet of the early morning, it was her time to think without anyone interrupting. Villains were typically night-owls, staying up late and sleeping late. Jinx was a bit of an oddity like that. Even when she was exhausted after a long night, she could never sleep much past dawn.

 She sighed and stared up at her ceiling, wondering if X was going to show up today. She was starting to get worried about him. He hadn't been to classes or their private training sessions in three days and even before that he had been acting strangely jumpy. He'd never missed so much as a single session since they'd made up and now he had missed three in a row and seemed to have completely disappeared from the school. She'd gotten so used to spending time with X that having her afternoons suddenly free was throwing her off. She had heard something about him getting sprayed with soda in the cafeteria, but didn't think he was the kind of person to hide over such a minor embarrassment.

 Jinx rolled out of bed and dragged her outfit on mechanically, not really paying attention as she pondered her unusual friend. The last few days had been odd. X was missing and Gizmo and Mammoth had been in disturbingly high spirits, they only had to make eye contact for both of them to burst out in vicious laughter. They had obviously done something terrible to some poor soul. Jinx didn't want to know. As much as they were her teammates, she had never been as delighted to hurt people as they were. Cops, security guards and heroes were free game, but Jinx couldn't bring herself to delight in the pain of bystanders and civilians. Just another way she didn't fit in. She never seemed to fit in anywhere. Not that it was surprising, considering that she was a walking bad luck curse.

 She carefully brushed and shaped her hair, studying herself in the mirror. Maybe that's why she had latched onto X so quickly. He didn't fit in either, but for him it was at least partially deliberate and he reveled in it. She was stuck being an outsider because her power wouldn't let her be anything else. He seemed to love being a loner. So much so that she was surprised by his lack of fight as she blackmailed her way into his life. He had eventually warmed up to her and was surprisingly social once she got to know him. Maybe the loner thing was a punishment he enforced on himself rather than a natural state of being. After all, what kind of a past caused someone to completely erase themselves?

 She shivered. She didn't know what he had gone through but there were dark shadows in his eyes sometimes that made her ache for him. Whatever it was, it had been the worst kind of bad.

 A horrible shrieking cut through her thoughts. It was coming through the wall she shared with Gizmo's room and it sounded like he was being brutally tortured. Jinx quickly dropped her brush, ignoring the fact that she only had one of her hair horns up and the other side of her hair flowed free. Her teammate was in trouble. She thanked Tyche that Headmistress Kane had put all of their rooms in the same hall as she ran next door.

 She stopped short at what she saw. Gizmo was bawling his eyes out as he clutched at his tech-pak, snot streaming down his face as he sniffled and sobbed. He wasn't hurt, nothing was attacking, nothing even looked damaged. "What the **_HELL_** , Gizmo? I thought you were dying in here."

 " _I'd rather be dead_!" Gizmo wailed despondently.

 Jinx had no idea what to do with that, so she awkwardly patted her underage teammate on the back. "Uh… There, there. I'm sure it's not that bad."

 " ** _IT'S ALL GONE!_** "

 "What's gone?"

 " **EVERYTHING!** " Gizmo dissolved into a new crying jag and his tantrum reddened face made him look just like other brats his age, for once.

 Obviously Gizmo wasn't going to be any help. Jinx poked around his room quickly, looking for something that could have set him off. She didn't probe too deeply into his junk, he was a 10-year old boy after all with all the disgusting habits that implied. She finally found her answer when she looked over his elaborate computer station. She had initially thought the monitors were off, which was strange enough because Gizmo never turned them off, but when she looked closer she realized that every single one was displaying a black screen with one single line of white text. -Press any key to boot from CD-

 Jinx cringed in sympathy, she didn't know much about computers, but she knew that systems should boot from the hard drive not a CD… unless someone had wiped the hard drive. Suddenly Gizmo's breakdown about losing 'everything' was clear. The kid lived a digital life, he thought digitally, designed and planned digitally and saved anything he coded or hacked to his home built system. Now it was all gone.

 "Don't you have any backups?"

 Gizmo gestured despondently at a large cabinet set to the side the bank of monitors. Swinging the door open she saw shelf after shelf crammed with external drives of all shapes and sizes. "Then what's the problem?" She reached out to snag one of the externals at random. "You can just…"

 She picked up the external drive only to find that it was an empty casing. Quickly, she grabbed another case from a different shelf. Empty. She pried one from the back of the shelf. Empty. The magnitude of what had happened finally struck her. She glanced over the shelves quickly calculating. There must be several hundred externals in the cabinet. Someone had gone through _every single one_ , removed the inner electronics and put the case back just to taunt Gizmo with false hope for recovery of his data. She was impressed with the amount of work and size of the personal vendetta that must have gone into this.

 "How much data was in here?" She asked in morbid curiosity.

 "Nine hundred and fifty-nine drives." Gizmo muttered, hugging his tech-pak for comfort as he rocked back and forth and stared into nothingness. "Eight hundred and one thousand, seven hundred and forty gigabytes of data. Gone."

 Jinx was in over her head. She had no idea how to handle this. Half the time Gizmo thought she was a gross girl with cooties. He wasn't going to accept comfort over losing his life's work from her. It was time for the big guns.

 She knocked on Mammoth's door. There was no answer, but she heard his big elephant feet clumping around behind the door. "Mammoth, get out here! Gizmo's having a mental breakdown and I'm not dealing with it myself."

 "No." Came the sullen answer.

 Pink hexfire flared up on her hand as irritation flooded her and she knocked again. "Get out here before I kick your ass."

 "I'm sick."

 "You can't get sick. Now, open the door before I break it down." The lock clicked and slid open. Jinx's reprimand got stuck in her throat. "What the _HELL_ happened to you?"

 Mammoth's hair was pink, a pale pastel pink even more feminine than Jinx's and the big metal rivets on his armbands and uniform had been replaced with large pink gems that sparkled merrily every time he moved. Even his goatee had been dyed. She quickly turned her snicker into a cough as he glowered down at her. "Why… uh, why didn't you put on a different uniform?"

 "They're all like this," he gestured at himself in disgust. "Some of them have glitter. I'm never leaving my room again."

 The school day was a lost cause by the time Jinx managed to calm her traumatized teammates down and intimidate them into revealing who would have had this much of a grudge against them. This was above and beyond the typical attempts at sabotage that came with the position at the top of the school hierarchy. There was legitimate and premeditated vengeance in these actions. Someone had attacked her teammates and destroyed what they cared about most, Gizmo's work and Mammoth's tough guy image. She was shocked to hear both of her teammates' adamant complaints that X was the one who sabotaged them.

 A chill ran through her. Had she misjudged the thief? Did he use her to get close to her team? _That rat bastard!_ Had he just pretended to be above the casual cruelty that was common amongst the student body? She had thought she'd finally found a kindred spirit, someone she could trust and he turned around and did THIS? It made a terrible kind of sense, he had the skills to pull it off without waking either of the boys. Jinx felt sick, she had actually thought she had a real friend for the first time in her life. Turns out he was just like everyone else. Bitter disappointment welled up inside her, spawning a red hot rage.

 The boys quickly gave up the location of X's room once she started actually growling and a thrashing aura of demonic pink hexfire enshrouded her entire body. The floor crumbled under her feet and the walls creaked dangerously as she stomped down the hastily evacuated halls towards her unsuspecting target. She restrained her power just enough to not burst X's door like an overripe melon as she pounded viciously on it.

 He looked terrible when he answered her furious knock. His eyes were bloodshot, his nostrils were reddened and running, and his lips were dried and cracked. His hands were bandaged and he was wearing nothing but the shimmering red-black Anonymous body suit he'd worn on the JCPD mission and she knew that he _hated_ the costume. It was a huge difference from the X she had seen just days earlier. Her rage guttered and died immediately. Any sympathy she had for her teammates evaporated.

 Without the red haze of self-entitled betrayal clouding her mind, Jinx realized that she really did know X well enough to be sure that he wouldn't have been the one to start things. He may be tricky, but he wasn't much of a liar or manipulator. Not to mention the fact that he was obviously hurting, while he had only retaliated against Gizmo and Mammoth's belongings and pride. She _had known_ that her teammates had done something terrible to _someone_ and they had probably deserved everything they'd gotten and more. She immediately deflated and her vicious aura faded as sympathy welled up in her.

 "Jinx." X greeted in a hoarse voice, stepping aside so that she could come inside and get out of the corridor where everyone was watching curiously and seemed disappointed that they weren't going to see a full blown bad luck beatdown. Her eyes darted around his room noticing that every bit of his furniture was new, there wasn't a single personal item on display and the air smelled like fresh paint.

 The corner of her mouth quirked up at the home-made mobile hanging from the ceiling over his bed. The glinting hard drive platters spun gently in the slight breeze as X shut the door, a fitting trophy of victory. Her smile fell away as she turned back to find that X had retreated to sprawl sideways across his bed in obvious exhaustion and had flung an arm over his face to shield his eyes. He was a wreck if he couldn’t even put in the effort to be his usual standoffish self.

"What. Did. They. Do?"

 X hesitated, lifting his arm and peering at her to try to gauge her emotional state, but visibly slumped at the look in her eyes and carefully wheezed through his damaged throat, "Gizmo… set the… automated… fire suppressing… chemical foam… on me."

 Her eyes narrowed dangerously and began to glow a solid pink. " _And?_ "

 "… and they… destroyed… all... my stuff."

 " **And?** "

 "… and… they've been…. attacking me… all week." He flinched at his own words and looked away. His shoulders were hunched as if he were awaiting a blow.

 "I'm going to _kill_ them." Jinx's blackened little heart broke for him when he just gaped at her in dumbfounded confusion. She knew exactly what he’d been thinking. There was no one who would fight for her either. They were the perfect matched pair, both alone in the crowd. From now on, she promised herself that he’d have someone on his side, and maybe someday he’d trust her enough to return the favor.

 Xander felt like he must have been dreaming as Jinx shoved him to lay properly on the bed and gently pulled the covers up over his aching body. If his head weren't throbbing so badly he might have protested her mothering. As it was, his foggy mind couldn't get over the fact that she had taken his side. She had obviously been on a rampage over what had been done to her teammates, what HE had done to them. Her abrupt about-face confused him. He knew they had become something like friends after all the afternoons they had spent together but she was a full blown, HIVE certified villain. What was she doing tucking him in and tracking down painkillers and water for him?

 He was the one who was supposed to be the henchman, she should have been demanding that he fetch and carry her things, not the other way around. He was especially surprised when she settled into his desk chair to keep watch over him as he slept. The only threats that knew where he slept were her teammates. Was she really going to choose him over them?

 His final thought as he nuzzled his head into his new pillow was that she was a TERRIBLE villain if this kind of thing bothered her. She was too soft-hearted.

 "What’s all this?" Jinx asked the next morning when he finally stumbled out of bed, gesturing at the generous pile of naked externals he had kept after liberating them from Gizmo. The kid was a genius after all and it was a shame to destroy his work when it could be misappropriated instead.

 Xander cleared his throat experimentally before responding. He was pleasantly surprised that the pain had eased a bit, even if his voice was still low and gravelly. "The parts of Gizmo's work that were worth keeping when I robbed him blind during 'Phase one’.”

 "Phase one?"

 "Yeah, they attacked my private space, so I attacked theirs. In order for it to be proper revenge I now have to one up them."

 Jinx watched him warily, "What do you consider one-upping what you've already done?"

 He grinned at her, "You'll see." He considered her for a second, “In fact… wanna be my henchman?”

 Jinx punched him in the arm and he was proud of the force and form of it even as he rocked back and rubbed at the pain.

 His revenge was brilliant in its simplicity. He and Jinx switched the screen wall that Gizmo and Mammoth had destroyed with one in the Headmistress' personal conference room. He recreated their handiwork perfectly. Headmistress Kane hated being humiliated more than anything and it was the height of professional embarrassment for her to open the door for an important business associate only to see her conference room defaced. A few well placed hexbolts made sure the chairs and table were destroyed in such a way that it looked like they’d been smashed with large fists and Buzz, who had originally been one of her many robo-bugs in the first place, was carefully pinned to the wall with the pieces while the cartoon Gizmo laughed. So nice of the tiny terror to sign his work.

 Xander had, after all, misappropriated everything the boys destroyed from around the school. It wasn't too hard to simply switch out his screen wall for hers and show her exactly what Gizmo and Mammoth had done to her expensive robotic toys. He missed Buzz enough that he stole a replacement, choosing one of the weaponized drones this time and synching it with Buzz's backup servers as well as an simple AI that Gizmo had created and then cruelly abandoned when he grew bored. What better way to protect Beej (Buzz Jr.) than to give it weapons and a budding personality with it's own grudge against the tiny technological terror.

 He was looking forward to the next time Gizmo tried to enter his rooms, Beej was a vicious guard bug armed with high end lasers.

 X found out quickly that Beej’s upgrade to slightly sentient pet had been a fantastic decision when the AI took the initiative to dig up an old search he’d asked Buzz for but never checked back on. It turned out that since he'd never called off the search, his loyal robo-bug had still been digging for any tidbits of information on the connection between Slade and Adeline Kane for the last month. What it found was surprising.

 Slade was apparently Slade Wilson, known in the darker circles as Deathstroke the Terminator and he was 100% Grade-A certified badass. This was a guy so well trained that he didn’t seem to care if people knew his name. He was the kind of stone-cold scary X was pretending to be.

 But, get this villainous soap opera twist- Slade was MARRIED to one Adeline Kane-Wilson, or had been at some point. The Headmistress’ current attitude about the man suggested a certain level of razed ground, mass civilian casualties, bitter breakup that only two black-ops trained, deadly mercenaries who served in Korea AND Vietnam together could achieve. The Headmistress looked pretty good for a woman who was old enough to have served in the military and gotten legally married by the 60s. It must have something to do with her powers.

 But, the real question was, why would a walking nightmare like Slade call up the angry ex-wife to send a team of baby villains to take out a team of baby heroes? It just made no kind of sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Slade/Addie history was supposed to be an Easter egg reference for any diehard Teen Titans/Deathstroke comic readers and a surprise to the rest... unfortunately, the tagging system totally shot me in the foot when Adeline’s full tag was ‘Adeline Kane Wilson’. The accidental spoiler ruined all my enthusiasm for the reveal and has been irritating me since the first chapter. I’m curious if any of you picked up on it. Did I manage to surprise anyone?

**Author's Note:**

> There have been some timeline questions, so I created a [timeline](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKmGU0vgJRP8QpytOHH76ih3LJEPC6RQpt0cS3spWSg/edit?usp=sharing) that I will update with relevant information as the fic advances. It's nowhere near as comprehensive as my master copy, but I promise that you really wouldn't want to try digging through 21 ever expanding pages of chaotic and spoilerific notes


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